


Forever

by teatimestories



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teatimestories/pseuds/teatimestories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's fingers are as cold as ever when they intertwine with Jamie's, like the frost-kissed petals of a spider lily, but Jamie can feel his pulse. It is warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking that Jamie's around nineteen or something here, but you can choose whatever age you want for him.
> 
> Also;; I still don't entirely ship this pairing, but I figured I'd write some sad stuff to emotionally torment one of my friends. Ehe.

The light of the moon is like fingers in his silvery hair, like a thin veil of cream draped over slender shoulders and a sharp jaw, the curve of his back and the muscles in his legs from racing the wind. His lashes are thick and coarse, and eyes, when he finally opens them, are still their piercing gaze of blue. Unchanged.

Jamie's eyes are different, now, hazel instead of warm brown. With them, he stares at Jack, swallows in the image of the sprite lying there, at the edge of the dock. With his hands, he memorizes Jack's body, all contours and lean lines and three hundred years of beauty. And with his lips, he worships him.

He's like a god. Jack's skin is cold to the touch, and his ribs stick out slightly beneath his breasts. His nostrils flare every time Jamie's fingers brush past the spot behind his ear, his lips curve when the two kiss.

He is surreal.

"I'm sorry," he tells Jamie, and Jamie hates it. Jack's voice isn't soft-- it rarely is; with such a great responsibility as being a guardian comes the happiness of bringing delight to children, but also stress. His voice is oddly harsh against the quiet lapping of water against the dock, but the way his Adam's apple bobs is enough to prove sincerity.

He's tired. And yet, drenched in moonlight and legs still slippery wet from their swim in the lake, he looks guilty.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Jamie tells him, despite the muffled agony in his heart. He wants Jack to be sorry. Because centuries after Jamie's gone and Jack can't completely remember that brunette from so long ago, he's still have the imprint of guilt. But Jamie doesn't say this. Instead: "I'm older, now, Jack. I understand."

Jack's eyes close again, lashes fluttering against his cheek. He's lying beneath Jamie, hair splayed out on the wood of the boat dock, and Jamie's arms are propped up around him, palms flat against the platform. His locks fall down, and for a second, from his vision, Jack looks like he has brown hair.

Jamie sits up and swings his legs over the edge. Lets them dangle there, lets his toes greet the frigid surface of the icy lake. It's cold, and Jack is the only one that actually went for a swim, but Jamie doesn't put his clothes back on. He doesn't want to end the moment of closeness by standing up.

He knows he'll have to, eventually. Or Jack will end this, all of it, because infinite just doesn't apply to humans.

"But you're still too young," says Jack, and this time it's so soft that the loudness of the sleeping trees rivals his voice. "And you-- humans grow so quickly."

Grown-ups don't see the Guardians. Can't. And by the time Jamie's mind has matured to the point where he could find protection in himself, where he was the figure that his children relied on for love, then he wouldn't need the make-believe of the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, of Santa Claus and the Sandman. And when winter came, snowstorms and heavy winds chasing after it, that's all it would be. Winter. Not the work of the mischievous Jack Frost's nimble fingers, but the weather forecast.

"Can we make this last, then?" Jamie says, but he doesn't look at Jack. Sometimes, it's too painful. And this is one of those times. Instead, he stares up at the moon, and the face of a smiling man has sad eyes.

He looks back at Jack.

The sprite sits up and joins him at the edge, side pressed flush against Jamie, who shivers at the cool touch. Their feet slosh around lightly in the water; Jamie's toes protest against the temperature, but he keeps them there nonetheless.

Jack's fingers are as cold as ever when they intertwine with Jamie's, like the frost-kissed petals of a spider lily, but Jamie can feel his pulse. It is warm.

"I don't know for how long," Jack whispers, to the surface of the lake. His eyes flicker to Jamie's, and when he leans in to press his lips against the corner of Jamie's mouth, the brunette tastes ice. "I'm sorry."

Jamie doesn't want sorry. He doesn't want apology. He wants forever, wants an eternity, wants Jack.

But children don't always get what they want, and even at nineteen, Jamie simply won't get him. And maybe that's for the best, because Jamie would lose Jack if he ever had him. To the inevitable, greedy hands of the Fates, whose scissor-blades cut clean ends to mortal lives.

"Please," Jamie begs him, fingers tightening slightly around Jack's. The bead of silver shed from Jack's eyes hits the lake and becomes frost, and some of the tears clump Jack's eyelashes together. Make them heavy. "I know that I can’t have forever, Jack."

Jamie's throat stings, and his eyes are sore from squeezing them shut, from rubbing away any wetness with his shoulder.

When Jack looks at Jamie again, his hands are cupping Jamie's cheeks. Their chests press flush against each other, cool skin against warm, and Jack's kiss is slow and sweet and painful. This is all too much like walking through a meadow of heated needles, except the sensation is dulled and concentrated on Jamie's chest.

Jack’s promises are in low murmurs, whispers, cradling Jamie’s heart that always feels so damned delicate whenever Jack is around. “ _Forever_ ,” Jack echoes, and for a second, Jamie believes, “we can have _almost_ , if we can’t have forever.” The pads of his fingers trace circles of winter on the small of Jamie's back.

The town is silent that night, hidden beneath a blanket of slumber, save for the two young men at the dock. They bathe in kisses and in touches, in bittersweet and in intimacy. And when the sun comes, and Jamie awakes in the bed of his dorm, the intricate lines and curves of frost at the corner of his window assure him that the shower of moonlight was not merely golden sand in his sleep. And that Jack had made his promise.

Eternal simply won't exist for Jamie, that much is unquestionable. There will come a time where Jamie's children will be the only ones in the family to remember the man with white hair and a ringing laughter. But Jamie doesn't know how he'll ever be able to give Jack Frost up, doesn't know if he can.

Forever is a word that stains Jamie's lips when he speaks it, because _forever_ is a dream the Sandman is merciful never to cast him. It is a concept too tantalizing, so sweetly dangerous. Something that Jamie could never have, something he could only grasp for and miss, time and time again. But last night wasn’t _almost_. Jack’s breaths against his collarbone weren’t almost. Jack’s legs tangled in his weren’t almost. Jack’s hair sticking to his forehead and his ears wasn’t almost. It was _forever_. And, for that moment, Jamie got his forever, the silent, loving misery, and the tiptoes of a cruel euphoria. He had gotten what he had wanted, and there is only a wait before time's ticking-bomb temper tears it all away from him. And Jamie won't wait for it to come.

His finger traces the swirl on the interior of the glass, and he commits it to memory.


End file.
